Seven Beauties-1975

Director Lina Wertmüller

Starring Giancarlo Giannini, Shirley Stoler, Fernando Rey

Top 250 Films #194

Scott’s Review #1,364

Reviewed June 3, 2023

Grade: A

Italian Director Lina Wertmüller was the first female ever nominated for the coveted Best Director Oscar. She did not win the award, but the nomination is a bold victory for women artists in 1975 and a testament to her visionary approach to filmmaking.

With Seven Beauties (1975), she tackles the painful subject of concentration camps during World War II with artistic merit and a powerful message of survival by her lead character, Pasqualino, brilliantly played by Giancarlo Giannini.

Through Pasqualino’s backstory, Wertmüller provides comic relief and a sizzling Italian style. This counterbalances the terrifying German elements with cultural and sometimes humorous sequences set in Italy. Pasqualino’s family hijinks are explored.

Back in the 1930s, Italy, Pasqualino is a struggling low-level Sicilian thug who accidentally kills a man who disgraced his unattractive and vulnerable sister, Concettina (Elena Fiore). He escapes imprisonment by joining the military, but goes AWOL when things get too severe.

Eventually, Pasqualino is captured and sent to a concentration camp, where he vows to do anything to survive. He attempts to seduce an evil and obese female German camp commander (Shirley Stoler), but this comes at a deadly price.

I’ll argue that Stoler should have received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Her callous nature only deepens as her character is peeled back, and Pasqualino’s hope that she has a glimmer of kindness in her is dashed. She is one of the best screen villains of all time.

Seven Beauties is an art film with gorgeous visuals, especially potent in the concentration camp and the surrounding forest. The greyness of the camp is the perfect opposite of the pizazz of Italy.

As Pasqualino and comrade Francesco wander through the looming German forest, the camera looks up at the sky in a blurry, dizzying way.

At the start of the film, black and white footage of World War II encompasses the screen, and slivers of the tyrants Mussolini and Hitler are displayed.

If not for the macabre dark humor we see in Italy, Seven Beauties might be too much of a downer. Pasqualino’s seven sisters are unattractive, and one is living the life of a struggling stripper and prostitute. He also manages to cleverly chop a body to bits and stuff the body parts into suitcases.

Back in Germany, the scenes between Pasqualino and the female commander are frightening. He is forced to provide sexual pleasures in exchange for his survival, but when she callously orders him to select six mates to be executed, her viciousness is apparent.

Giannini is a fabulous actor and heartbreakingly reveals Pasqualino’s vulnerabilities as the film plows forward. His good-natured innocence is lost forever, and the man he becomes is darker.

But the caveat is that the character is never purely good; rather, they are layered with complexities. Always, Giannini emotes deep expressionism through his powerful green eyes.

Similarities between Seven Beauties and Fellini’s Amarcord (1973) or Fellini’s Roma (1972) are evident.

Had I not known Wertmüller directed the film I would have thought Fellini had. This is more so because of the Italian sequences featuring a bevy of zany, homely characters, which adds flavor and humor.

Fernando Rey, well-known for playing the villain in The French Connection (1971), appears as a doomed prisoner who ends up in a large tub of shit rather than suffer a forced execution.

The executions are sob-inducing as lines and lines of prisoners being callously shot and killed are tough to watch. But the film’s core is the viciousness of humanity, and this must never be forgotten.

Wertmüller delivers a masterpiece that I’ve now seen only twice. I plan to watch this film again and again for the content to sink in more.

The comic elements of Seven Beauties (1975) never diminish or lighten the horror of the Nazi’s actions since they are not done in parallel. The back-and-forth between periods only adds value and balance to a powerful subject.

Oscar Nominations: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director-Lina Wertmüller, Best Actor-Giancarlo Giannini, Best Screenplay-Written Directly for the Screen